Traditional dancers shine at festival

The soft sand of the Todd River was the stage for a showcase of ceremonial dancers and singers from the desert to the Top End.

Hundreds of festival goers enjoyed the experience of watching traditional dance and song from ten different groups including dancers from Borolloola, Ti Tree and Alice Springs.

Top of the list were Arrernte dancers performing dreaming stories from the Simpson Desert.

Eastern-Arrernte woman, Carol Turner, says the dance related a story about ladies 'following a rainbow'.

"I think everybody was very excited to be part of this," she says, telling me that her daughter Megan was one of the dancers.

"It's very exciting for me because I used to dance, now she's taking over.'

Jacob Riley, an elder with the Borolloola (Mara) dancers says the dreaming story the group performed was handed over to him from his uncle, who has now passed away.

He tells me the dance is about a buffalo.

"This one bloke shot it, one white bloke, and our grandma dreamed this song about the buffalo..then she passed it over to her son...[who] passed it on to me."

April Campbell, an Anmatjere woman from Ti Tree, helped co-ordinate the dancers representing Ti Tree - she was also one of the singers.

"The dance those ladies did, it's about my country," she says.

"They was dancing about the spirits hunting around in their country, it's a spirit lady walking around their country and looking for the seeds to make damper for [her] family."

April says she felt proud to see the dancers perform.

"They were really excited to perform, they were feeling confident and really proud of themselves...there's a spirit always with them, helping them out, supporting them and that's why they feel really strong."

Erin-Bridget Bright, who recently moved to Alice Springs, was impressed with the performances.

"I think it's beautiful to see culture alive and well and being performed in traditional grounds, it's something there should be more of," she said.